SYNOPSIS: Hailed around the world as one of the greatest movies ever made, Vittorio De Sica’s Academy Award–winning Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di biciclette) defined an era in cinema. In postwar, poverty-stricken Rome, a man, hoping to support his desperate family with a new job, loses his bicycle, his main means of transportation for work. With his wide-eyed young son in tow, he sets off to track down the thief. Simple in construction and dazzlingly rich in human insight, Bicycle Thieves embodied all the greatest strengths of the neorealist film movement in Italy: emotional clarity, social righteousness, and brutal honesty.
| Antonio Ricci | Lamberto Maggiorani |
| Bruno Ricci | Enzo Staiola |
| Maria Ricci | Lianella Carell |
| Baiocco | Gino Saltamerenda |
| The thief | Vittorio Antonucci |
| The beggar | Giulio Chiari |
| Director | Vittorio De Sica |
| Screenplay | Vittorio De Sica, Suso Cecchi D'Amico, Gerardo Guerrieri and Cesare Zavattini |
| Cinematography | Carlo Montuori |
| Producer | Giuseppe Amato and Vittorio De Sica |
| Story | Cesare Zavattini |
| Based on a novel by | Luigi Bartolini |
| Sound | Gino Fiorelli |
| Editing | Eraldo Da Roma |
| Music | Alessandro Cicognini |
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By February 12, 2007
Viewed in retrospect, much of modern cinema can seem to flow from twin fountainheads: Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane (1941) and Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948 Read more »
By February 12, 2007
Bicycle Thieves is truly one of my favorite films. I could watch it over and over again, and in truth, I have. It’s a complicated and eloquent story in spite of its simple plot. The Read more »
By August 02, 2010
The great, beloved screenwriter Suso Cecchi D’Amico died this past weekend at the age of ninety-six. A longtime collaborator of Luchino Visconti’s (they’re pictured together above), including Read more »
May 20, 2010
To coincide with the Cannes premiere of his latest film, Route Irish, English social-realist director Ken Loach (Kes, Hidden Agenda) has written a short reminiscence for the Guardian’s ongoing Read more »
